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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24632869">QueensGuard</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/notthelasttime/pseuds/notthelasttime'>notthelasttime</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Final Fantasy XV</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canonical Character Death, Crowe Altius Deserves Better, Crowe Altius Lives, F/F, Fix-It, Minor Violence, Zine: She Deserved Better</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-06-09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-06-09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 01:01:12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,481</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24632869</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/notthelasttime/pseuds/notthelasttime</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Ringing in her ears, blood and dirt in her mouth, and Luche－ blotting out the high sun as an ink spot in her vision. Crowe would have died for him. She would have died for any of them. Judging by the bullet in her gut Luche wanted that time to come sooner rather than later.</p>
<p>Not if Crowe had anything to say about it.</p>
<p>(Or: The One Where Crowe Lives)</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>implied Lunafreya Nox Fleuret/Crowe Altius</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>9</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>25</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>QueensGuard</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Thank you so much to everyone on the She Deserved Better Zine team! This project was amazing to work on, in addition to just generally being a topic I'm incredibly enthusiastic about AND the funds raise from the zine going to such a good cause (Planned Parenthood Federation of America).</p>
<p>more info can be found at the zine's twitter (@zine_she) - and if you missed a chance to preorder or are interested in a digital copy, keep an eye on the zine's etsy shop! overflow sales should be going up in a week or two (at the time of posting this fic)</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p><em> Ringing</em>.</p>
<p>Ringing in her ears, blood and dirt in her mouth, and Luche－ blotting out the high sun as an ink spot in her vision. Crowe would have died for him. She would have died for any of them. Judging by the bullet in her gut Luche wanted that time to come sooner rather than later.</p>
<p>Not if Crowe had anything to say about it.</p>
<p>
  <em> Think. </em>
</p>
<p>She wasn’t going down like this, in some desert dump on the side of the road, backstabbed by someone she had called family－ <em> but </em>. Her family was made by choice. Crowe knew the Glaive better than she knew herself and now the element of surprise was gone, the only advantage he had. Luches arrogance would be his undoing. </p>
<p>He sauntered forward with lazy steps before crouching in front of her, arms resting on his thighs and gun dangling loosely from his hand.</p>
<p>She couldn’t breathe. And it took Crowe that long moment in slow motion to realize she couldn’t draw breath because she couldn’t stop screaming.</p>
<p>“Your king can’t save you now.”</p>
<p>
  <em> Think.</em>
</p>
<p>In every moment on every battlefield, her mind had always planned for this. This moment, when life and death hung in the balance and any wrong move meant game over. Such a shame that the drama of her near demise was spent choking and coughing up dirt, but Crowe managed to spit the words out all the same.</p>
<p>“I can save myself,” she said, and then blew Luche back with a fireball so massive she saw the bottom of his boots as he was sent flying back, gun knocked clear out of his hand and lying on the ground in front of her. Sun glinted off the metal barrel bright enough to make her eyes burn.</p>
<p>Crowe crawled. Slow and painful, with one hand clutching her stomach, one reaching out in front of her, and eyes locked on the patch of dead prairie grass that Luche had flown into. She didn’t have much magic left in her, not much <em> life </em> either. But she crawled, wailing like a dying animal, like when those stray dogs in Galahd got wounded and were left for dead without a master, wailing and wailing until their time came. </p>
<p>She crawled, and snatched up the gun that had done a real piece of nasty work on her, every moment ticking away as a moment Luche might come back to life with a vengeance, a personal brigade to take her down, and Crowe could only hope if that was the case, if he wasn’t dead yet, that she’d done enough damage to give herself a fighting chance. </p>
<p>At the edge of the ditch on the side of the road she managed to just barely get to her knees. The dead world stretched out before her, dirt and shrubs all painted in brown and bleached from the sun. Luche lay there unmoving, face down.</p>
<p>Crowe unloaded the rest of the barrel into his motionless back, and had she the strength to spare she would have flamed his body again, screaming all the while.</p>
<p>Instead she collapsed back on the ground, breathing heavy and bleeding out, the world foggy around the edges. There was something terribly wrong within the Glaive, something that started and ended with a betrayal that she had only caught the threads of, but Crowe was alive.</p>
<p>Gloriously, wonderfully alive.</p>
<p> </p>
<hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>Crowe sat in the front seat of Luche’s black van, on arm slung over her stomach, engine dead and head running at top speed. </p>
<p>She’d been able to stop the bleeding at least. Crowe had always been worst with healing magic, so much better suited to complete and total destruction, Lucian magic giving her the power to raze the things that took her past life away. But healing? She winced and shifted her position, thought her options through once again.</p>
<p>She could go back to Insomnia. Report this mess of an incident, and probably get put on trial, assuming she even made it that far, if her conspirators weren’t on her as soon as she was back within city limits to turn her into the corpse she was expected to be. </p>
<p>Whoever was giving the orders in this was high up. Someone of importance, with knowledge to move their chess pieces into place. Her escort orders were given in an empty room with Titus Drautos and Cor Leonis. One of them, then? The thought was daunting; the kind of damage they could do and the secrets they knew. Nevermind the fact that when she wrote the word traitor across their faces in red, she couldn’t make it stick. That’s what loyalty got her. This whole mess was where blind loyalty had led, and she wanted nothing more than to call up Libertus crying, tell him to come get her and take her back home. But what then? Put him in danger, or was he in on this too? Did he know she was going to her death? Did Nyx?</p>
<p>No.</p>
<p>They would never betray her, and that was something she had to believe. But then again she never thought that Luche, little shit that he was, would be the one sticking her with a bullet. </p>
<p>In the end she’d smashed her phone under her boot to stop herself from calling. They were probably tracking her with it anyway. Her phone, her watch, the hair clip, all smashed and left on the side of the road. She couldn’t risk taking her bike, and the van? Maybe they were tracking that too and that meant she had better get a move on, find some junker to steal and hope law enforcement beyond the wall was as quiet as the rest of the desert.</p>
<p>She could go to Tenebrae. </p>
<p>And the vipers nest of Nifs waiting for her there, all the more dangerous if the people who were supposed to have her back were there to stab it instead. But this was a solo mission, sent from the King, supposedly, and there was truth in that, she felt. She could still get Lady Lunafreya out if she was careful and did it right, more a danger going rogue and staying unpredictable when she was supposed to be dead.</p>
<p>Mind made up, Crowe started the engine and pulled onto the road. </p>
<p> </p>
<hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>“<em> I do not recall granting you permission to leave your quarters, Lunafreya…</em>”</p>
<p>Voices carried in Fenestala manor. They echoed off walls and down corridors, bounced from every high ceiling like the rhythmic footsteps of Niflheim troops, and the metallic clanking of their armor. </p>
<p>The Glaives may have turned on her but they couldn’t take away her training or erase the knowledge that came along with it. They couldn’t cut her off from Lucian magic. That was as ingrained in Crowe as the will to keep breathing.</p>
<p>Off Lady Lunafreya was carted to her room, and Crowe snuck along at a distance, heart racing. She was exhausted, strained, and still recovering from her shoddy healing job. But this mission didn’t care for her mood or the state of her health, and she could suck it up and get it done or give up. This particular part of infiltration hadn’t been the plan, but the plan was in shambles and she didn’t know what she’d be walking in to. The fact that Lady Lunafreya was trying to make an escape was a good sign. There was hope yet left of the situation.</p>
<p>Crowe kept hidden in the shadows, past waiting and listening to the strained voices muffled in Lunafreya’s room, until the door opened and slammed shut again, more echoing footsteps fading away. She waited still, caution her only option this late in the game, and after taking a steading breath to calm herself, Crowe slipped from her nook and let herself into the room.</p>
<p>Lady Lunafreya cut a pretty picture standing in front of one of the large windows, even if her head hung low, shoulders slumped in defeat, isolation granting her honesty. At the noise of someone entering her posture changed, no longer someone conquered, but a Princess again, full of poise and grace and a neutral mask over her expression when she turned. But the mask slipped for a moment into confusion as her eyes landed on Crowe.</p>
<p>“Who are you?”</p>
<p>“Your knight in shining armor.”</p>
<p>Lunafreya’s mouth tightened as Crowe pushed her way into the room. The less time spent here the better, they had to <em> move </em>.</p>
<p>Lady Lunafreya gilded herself, body tense and held straight. “You will identify yourself <em> now </em>－”</p>
<p>“Crowe Altius, of the Kingsglaive…. Your Highness.” Crowe cringed as she tacked on the title, their situation eroding away her tolerance for niceties and protocol, but this was indeed, supposedly, her future Queen standing before her. Crowe gave a strained bow, before clutching at her stomach at the spike of pain in her wound, and then went to the window where Lady Lunafreya had been standing, praying for an exit that did not involve sneaking back out the way she came. No such luck.</p>
<p>“You’re hurt,” Lunafreya said, watching her.</p>
<p>“I’m fine.”</p>
<p>“You’re late, too.” Crowe shot her head around, unsure if she was offended or just amused. Lady Lunafreya crossed her arms, head tilted and eyebrows raised, maybe partially playing as well. </p>
<p>“Well, your Highness,” Crowe said with as much of a mock bow as she could manage, arm wrapped around herself, “if I may say, I do seem to think that I am right on time, seeing as how you’re all dressed up and ready to go.” Lunafreya looked ready to laugh, but Crowe cut her off, guiding her back to the door with no other options for escape. “Come on, we need to go.”</p>
<p>It was slower moving with Lady Lunafreya in tow, her heels clicking on the floor as they darted from one hiding spot to the next. But it was easy to fall into a sense of false security, after enough turns through the manor, avoiding every guard post and pair of wandering soldiers. Timing was everything. The difference between sneaking through a blind spot and getting caught.</p>
<p>Or running headlong right into the enemy. </p>
<p>Crowe could count every mistake she’d ever made leading up to that point, but the first and most glaring was thinking that they were home free on the bottom floor, with a side exit out to the sprawling grounds in sight. </p>
<p>Crowe motioned Lunafreya forward, the taste of freedom in her mouth. So of course Ravus Nox Fleuret chose that moment to step into the same corridor, catching the two of them like deer in headlights.</p>
<p>Judging by the look on his face, the Commander was just as surprised as them. Crowe’s saving grace in weeks of hellish bad luck.</p>
<p>“Luna－“</p>
<p>“<em>Run! </em>”</p>
<p>They had moments before Ravus brought the full force of Niflheim down on them and crushed any chance of future escape.</p>
<p>They ran and Ravus ran after them, no small miracle that he was alone, that there were no other guards with him. But between Lunafreya’s heels and Crowe’s wound Ravus was moments from catching them.</p>
<p>Crowe swung around, hand raised and magic boiling within her, ready to spill over. A flash in her mind－ Luche blown back by flame and－</p>
<p>“<em>Don’t hurt him! </em>”</p>
<p>Lunafreya’s voice cut through her, and in that split second, without conscious thought or consideration, she turned her focus up….  </p>
<p>And brought half the ceiling down in front of them with a crack, windows shattered spraying shards of glass on the floor, marble and plaster crashing and tumbling making Ravus jump back or risk getting crushed, and then he was cut off from them entirely, blocked by the mess of destruction Crowe had created.</p>
<p>She gasped, drained and suddenly lightheaded, her vision dangerously sharp. If I’d wasn’t for the new shock of pain in her gut, the feeling of a wound splitting back open, she never would have stayed grounded enough to press forward.</p>
<p>Wordlessly, she stumbled with Lunafreya out of the manor, through the grounds and beyond, where they disappeared into the forest.</p>
<p> </p>
<hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>They wouldn’t be safe until they were far gone from the borders of Tenebrae, and even that was a tentative and delicate sort of safety. The drone of drop-ships had chased them through the lush landscape, keeping Crowe in a hyper aware state of tension. But Lady Lunafreya was good, quick and quiet, even in her heels and pretty dress, hiding or running when Crowe told her to run or hide. They made it to Crowe’s stashed and stolen getaway vehicle, a replacement bike that would let them move fast and travel light. She needed rest. She needed to breathe and she needed to try and replenish the energy that the explosion of magic has sapped from her, but they didn’t have the time. MTs would be crawling through the forest and hot on the trail.</p>
<p>“You’re bleeding.” Lunafreya’s voice was gentle. She’d had to have noticed Crowe was struggling. Now wasn’t the time for wallowing in pain or letting it slow them down, but it was going to make their journey a challenge.</p>
<p>“I’ll be fine,” Crowe said in the most reassuring voice she could manage, offering Lunafreya a strained smile. Some escort she was, if she couldn’t even inspire confidence in her skills as a fighter. This whole mission had been botched from the start.</p>
<p>“Here," Lunafreya said, holding out her hands, “I can help.”</p>
<p>Crowe’s reluctance must have shown on her face, but Lunafreya was nonplussed, gently coming forward, closer into Crowe’s personal space. Feather light, her fingers brushed over Crowe’s abdomen, and it took all of her willpower to hold still and not flinch away. But then… Lunafreya’s eyes closed, and there was a pulse. Something Crowe only felt, but thought she should be able to see, like light, and relief washed through her, slow at first and then vibrating out from Lunafreya’s hands and into her entire body. </p>
<p>She gasped. And then let out a long breath, shaking slightly, as Lunafreya opened her eyes, and moved away once again, Crowe already feeling her absence as a shallow ache. Healing magic. True, powerful healing magic of the Oracle. Crowe may have been a mass of destruction and fire, but Lunafreya was the complete epitome of that, something light and good. Something beautiful. </p>
<p>Something worth saving.</p>
<p>Crowe climbed onto the bike and Lunafreya followed her lead, settling in behind her. The Niffs would be coming in hot, but the road stretched on in front of them, open and clear. She kicked the motor to life and it rumbled beneath her, ready to sprint forward, but Crowe hesitated, and looked back over her shoulder.</p>
<p>“Your Highness… Lunafreya. No matter what happens, I’ll keep you safe.”</p>
<p>Fingers tightened on her shoulders, and Lunafreya leaned in closer. “I believe that you will… Glaive Crowe Altius.” </p>
<p>Onward, to Altissia. </p>
<p> </p>
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